Graham Todd might think twice the next time he offers to help a mate out of a hole - after getting stuck down a drain while trying to do a good turn.

Big-hearted Graham, 32, dived in feet first when his best pal's girlfriend dropped her keys into the sewer outside her Blackley home.

Six-footer Graham stripped down to his jeans, removed the drain cover and squeezed into the foot-wide hole thinking he'd be able to haul himself out.

But after a few minutes of digging around in the mud he couldn't find the keys - and realised he was well and truly jammed.

Friends and neighbours tried in vain to rescue Graham but soon gave up and called the fire brigade.

The drama was caught on video with bystanders heard laughing.

When Graham, known as Pikey, says he can see rats one pal responds: `You're the rat!'

Unemployed Graham, of Tenterden Walk, Wythenshawe, said: "The things you do for your friends when they are in a predicament!

"Nobody else would go down there, so they called me because they knew I'd be up for it.

"The neighbours must have thought we were mad."

After being hoisted out of the drain, Graham, who was caked in dirt from the waist down, was hosed off in the street by the firefighters before taking a well-earned bath.

Anne-Marie Jones, whose keys he was searching for, said: "It was hilarious but he is mad and he'll do anything.

"All the neighbours were out on the street and everybody was trying to lift him out but he was stuck fast.

"When he came out he was manky from all the mud and oil down there and all the kids on the street said he stunk - but I didn't get close enough to find out!"

Commander Mike Bloomfield, of Blackley fire station, said: "When we got there all we could see was the top of his head, poking out of a hole in the road. It was quite comical.

"We used a harness to pull him free and then hosed him down using the truck's reels. And he didn't even manage to get the keys in the end. We had a go as well but they were at the bottom of three feet of sludge and we couldn't find them."

A fire service spokesman added: "We would urge people to think about the consequences of placing themselves in dangerous positions to retrieve items."